Strand-specific viral DNA synthesis in purified viroplasms isolated from turnip leaves infected with cauliflower mosaic virus.

There is some evidence that two steps are involved in the DNA replication of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV): the first one may occur in the nucleus and the second one in the cytoplasm of infected cells. The latter would correspond to the reverse transcription step recently proposed in the model of the viral life cycle, and could occur in the viroplasms which are CaMV-induced cytoplasmic inclusion bodies. In order to test whether viroplasms are capable of DNA synthesis and to characterize the associated enzymatic activities, we developed an extensive purification method for these organelles. Such isolated viroplasms are indeed able to incorporate radioactive precursors into exclusively viral-specific sequences without added template primer. Hybridization of sequences labeled in viroplasms to cloned CaMV DNA shows that the DNA synthesis occurs throughout the whole viral genome and has marked strand specificity; neosynthesized molecules are of minus polarity, i.e., complementary to the large viral transcript (35 S RNA). Moreover, during the purification of viroplasms, the poly(rC)-directed DNA synthesis activity, which is specific to infected plants, is preferentially retained.